How Your Networks™ works

Plain words, not legal ones. The official versions are our Terms, Privacy Policy, and Refund Policy.

Your Networks™ is a private, member-funded platform for people and businesses who produce goods and services for their communities. There are no ads.

You build a profile from your real experience and skills, place yourself on a shared map, post what you offer and what you need, and form or join networks — groups of people and businesses working toward something together. This guide explains the rules.

1Joining and paying

Anyone can read the public pages: Explore, Mission, Goals, About, Economics and this guide. To use the network itself — the map, posts, messages, networks and calendars — you need a membership.

• Start with a 30-day free trial. Checkout asks for a payment method, but you are not charged during the trial. Cancel before it ends and you pay nothing.
• After the trial, membership is $29.99 a year or $2.99 a month. Members whose billing address is in an African country pay $10 a year for the annual plan. Stripe, our payment company, handles billing.
• If your membership lapses, you can still sign in, but you see the membership screen until you renew.

2If you sign up but don’t start

An account that never starts a free trial is deleted automatically once it is 24 hours old. Once you start a trial or pay, your account stays.

3Complimentary access

The Coordinator (section 8) can give a member free access, for a set period or with no end date. While it lasts you have full access and pay nothing. When it ends, you need a paid membership to continue.

4Networks and businesses

Who runs them

• Whoever starts a network manages it at first. The role belongs to the members: they can add managers and remove them by vote (section 5).
• A business is run by its owners and admins.
• To join a public network, send a request; a manager approves or declines it. Invite-only networks do not take requests.

Calendars

• A network’s events are added, changed and deleted by its managers only.
• A business’s events are added, changed and deleted by its owners and admins only.
• A project’s events are added, changed and deleted by the people who can edit that project.
• Everyone else in the group can see these events. Your personal events are yours alone.

Archiving

• A network manager or a business owner can archive it from its page (Archive network or Archive this business). You confirm by typing its name.
• A business cannot be archived while its shop is open or it has unfinished orders.
• Archiving removes every member, closes open votes, makes its showcase private, and hides its projects, events and listings from everyone.
• The archive is kept in the Archived section of the person who archived it. Only that person can revive it. Reviving brings back the same network or business, with its members in their old roles and the reviver in charge, and tells the members.
• A network is archived automatically if its last manager goes and fewer than two active members remain. A business is archived automatically if it has no owner or admin left. In both cases the longest-standing remaining member holds the archive.

5Votes

Networks make decisions by recorded vote. Any active member of a network can open a vote, and every vote shows its rules and your network’s numbers before you vote.

Terms

• Electorate. The network’s active members when the vote opens. It does not change while the vote runs.
• Ballots cast. Everyone who voted, including blank ballots.
• Turnout gate. At least 51% of the electorate, rounded up, must vote. If fewer do, the result is turnout not met.
• Blank ballot. A ballot with nothing selected. It counts as a ballot cast.

Yes/no question

• Write a question; the answers are Yes and No.
• Turnout gate applies. It passes if yes votes are more than half of ballots cast. A tie does not pass.
• Nothing happens automatically. The result records where members stand.
• Example: 6 members. At least 4 must vote. With 4 ballots, 3 yes passes; 2 yes and 2 no does not.

Manager selection

• Any member can open one, even if the network has a manager. Only one runs at a time.
• Nominations come first, then voting. Each lasts 7 days by default and can be set from 1 hour to 30 days.
• Nominate yourself, or nominate someone else, who then accepts or declines. Only people who accept are on the ballot. If nobody stands, the vote ends there.
• Approve as many candidates as you like. Turnout gate applies.
• A candidate is appointed if their approvals are more than half of ballots cast. Leading is not enough, and there are no run-offs.
• If two or more candidates tie above that line, each is asked to manage jointly. If all accept in time (7 days by default), all are appointed. If anyone declines or doesn’t answer, nobody is appointed.
• If more blank ballots are cast than any candidate’s approvals, nobody is appointed.
• A selection only adds managers. It never removes one; that is a separate vote.
• Example: 10 members. At least 6 must vote. With 6 ballots, a candidate needs 4 approvals.

Option selection

• Write two or more options, and choose whether voters pick one or several. There is no turnout gate and no threshold.
• The option with the most votes is selected. A tie for first selects nothing.
• If blank ballots equal or outnumber the top option, nothing is selected.

Removing a manager or a member

• Any member can open a vote about another member, and must give a reason. Members see the reason and the person’s name and username on the ballot.
• A manager must first be voted out of the role; removing them from the network is a second vote.
• Turnout gate applies. It passes only if yes votes are more than half of the whole electorate — not of ballots cast. No, blank and not voting all count against it.
• If it passes, the manager role ends, or the person is removed from the network.
• Only one vote about a given member can run at a time.
• Example: 10 members. 6 must vote yes. Removal is deliberately harder than appointment (4 of 10 above).
• In a network of three, one member cannot remove another if the other two disagree. That is by design.

If the person leaves first

• If the person a removal vote is about leaves the network, the vote ends with no result. Ballots already cast stay on the record.
• If you leave on your own, you can ask to rejoin like anyone else.
• If you are removed by vote, you cannot ask to rejoin for 60 days; 120 days after a second removal; 365 days after a third or later.

Readmission

• After that wait, asking to rejoin opens a readmission vote. No manager can decide it alone.
• It uses the removal rule: yes votes must be more than half of the whole electorate, and the turnout gate applies.
• If it fails, for any reason including low turnout, the wait starts again at the next length.

Procedural vote

If a former manager renews a lapsed membership while a manager selection is in its voting stage, that selection pauses and members vote on whether to start it over with that person able to stand, or let it finish. There is no turnout gate.

Your ballot

• While a vote is open, counts are hidden. Everyone sees how many people have voted; nobody sees who voted for what.
• You can change your ballot as often as you like until it closes, or take it back entirely.
• You can have one vote of your own open at a time. Managers may open more, except removal votes.
• Whoever opened a vote, or a manager, can withdraw it until someone has voted.
• Votes close at the stated time, and results are posted within a few minutes. A vote that ends without a decision is recorded as it is; nothing re-runs automatically. Members can open a new vote at any time.

6Stepping down and leaving

• To step down as a manager, open the network (from Networks, or Profile ▸ Networks) and press Step down as manager in its votes section. You remain a member.
• If that leaves the network with no manager, a manager selection opens automatically, as long as at least two active members remain. Otherwise the network is archived (section 4).
• To leave a network, press Leave on its page.

7Linking a calendar you already use

On the Calendar page, press Add Calendar, then Connect a calendar. Choose Google, Outlook, Apple or another calendar, and follow the steps to paste its iCal (.ics) address. You can link up to ten.

Their events appear on your calendar and update every 5 minutes. They are read-only here; keep editing them where you already do.

8The Coordinator

The Coordinator is our staff. Coordinators:

• review reports, and can warn, suspend or ban an account;
• answer support requests;
• grant complimentary access (section 3);
• oversee the Market, Boycotts, Requirements and the project fund.

Coordinators do not run your network; its members do, by vote. To reach the Coordinator, use Support on the dashboard or the Contact page.

9Your information

• We use your information to run the service. We do not sell it, and we do not run ads.
• To delete your account, follow the steps on the Delete Account page. Personal data is deleted or anonymized within 30 days of a verified request, and backup copies are purged within 90 days.
• Unstarted sign-ups are deleted automatically (section 2).

The Privacy Policy has the full details.

10The fund and the Requirements ledger

• 10% of profit goes to the members’ project fund. Profit is what membership fees leave after tax, payment fees and running costs.
• On the Fund page, members vote for the projects they want the fund to support. Funding runs in 180-day cycles; when a cycle closes, the Coordinator makes the awards.
• On the Requirements page, members file what the platform should do and answer whether each item is needed. The more members answer Yes, the higher it sits.

See Economics for the estimates, and Mission and Goals for why the fund exists.